Bill's Picasso story

[Bill Ryan]

Hello, Everyone — I've just been told by a couple of friends that Kevin Moore has published a video about me and the strange, complicated and interesting Picasso story, which many of you may already know about.

For anyone who's not at all familiar with this, I shared the whole story back in December 2018, here (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104824-Bill-Ryan-s-personal-Question-and-Answer-thread.-Pile-it-on.--&p=1264043&viewfull=1#post1264043), on my personal Q&A thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104824-Bill-Ryan-s-personal-Question-and-Answer-thread.-Pile-it-on.--). Here it all is:

~~~


Hi Bill, I remember you a couple of weeks ago talking about 'doxxing' or being 'doxxed' and I'll admit I had to google what that term means as I didn't know! Anyway, this thread has grown into a large resource of wonderful info that I wouldn't know where to begin to find the post/comments about this. However, I DO remember it having something to do with Corey Goode. It's not my intention to bad mouth anyone or start gossiping, but I think you said he'd made a vicious attack about you - was this to do with a Picasso painting I think you've spoken of before? (Sorry my memory is a bit sketchy). I hope I'm not prying but would you care to share that experience with us - or more to the point, would you like the opportunity to get your side of the story off your chest? Once again Bill, thank you for your generosity and insight. xxx

Yes! The Picasso story. OMG. :) I've posted about this before somewhere, but here it all is again. It's actually really interesting.

Many years ago, when I was a child, and we were living in Ghana, my father did a great personal favor for a wealthy art collector who was visiting the country, whose name was Emile Wolf. He was one of the patrons of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

(If you Google ["Metropolitan Museum of Art" + "Emile Wolf"], you'll see him come up in a number of references.)

In return, he gave my father a Picasso charcoal drawing, which he said "would pay for my education someday". Here it is:

http://projectavalon.net/Online_Picasso_Project_OPP.01-119_commentary.jpg

And here's an enlargement of the signature: "P. Ruiz Picasso". This is how he signed all his early work. (Dr Enrique Mallen — a Picasso expert, see below — dated it to around 1903.)

http://projectavalon.net/P_Ruiz_Picasso_signature.jpg

Eventually, long after my father had died (and I'd completed my education!), I asked permission from my elderly mother to sell it. It was uncataloged (i.e. it was a previously unknown work, which sometimes happens in the art world), so I needed a certificate of authenticity from a respected art authority. I sought out Dr Enrique Mallen, of the On-line Picasso Project (https://picasso.shsu.edu), and paid him $2,000 to examine the drawing. He pronounced it authentic, gave me a fornal certificate of authenticity, and placed it in his catalog.

Armed with that, I sought out an interested art dealer, and the drawing was sold — for something like (from memory) $120,000.

But then the buyer tried to sell it on. The buyer's potential client consulted Maya Widmaier-Picasso (Pablo Picasso's daughter), who said it was a fake. Then all hell broke loose.

The then-owner of the drawing wanted his money back (from the art dealer), and then the art dealer wanted her money back from me. By that time, I no longer had any of the money, as I'd used it to pay off debts. And besides, we'd conducted the sale-and-purchase in agreed good faith, supported by a certificate of authenticity that was actually just as (if not even more) valid than Picasso's daughter's personal opinion.

But the problem here is that in the art world, if a work gets 'burned' (by any authority at all stating it's not genuine) — then from a collector's point of view, it becomes worth far less on the market. It's all about money... it's not about art, at all.

Then they took me to court. The art dealer's lawyer recommended that I should be sued for 'art fraud'. That happened in California, and I was then living in Switzerland. I was served papers in the mail that I (naively) signed for.

I'm really a child in these matters, and so I just called up their lawyer on the phone and told him the truth. Just like he was a friend over a cup of coffee. OMG. He was a nice guy, but of course he was contracted by his client to sue me. He was no 'friend' at all.

The case ground on, and I never understood any of it. I consulted a lawyer in the US, but was told I'd need to pay $25,000 as a down payment. That wasn't going to happen... I never had any of that kind of money. In the end, I asked a friend of a friend who was a paralegal to take a look at what the heck was going on. I paid him a mere $3,000, which I could afford.

He did something, but it wasn't enough. Next thing I knew, without ever having attended the court, I was convicted of fraud in absentia (and was ordered to repay the proceeds, plus substantial damages). Of course, I never have. That public record still stands, and it's quite easy, by omitting most of the facts, for someone harboring ill-will to make all this look pretty bad if they choose to.

The art dealer was compensated by insurance, of course. So no-one actually lost out.

From time to time this surfaces, and enemies of Avalon gleefully get hold of it and try to shoot me with it. I have a few unpleasant personal experiences of sneering enemies using this to taunt me. I did nothing illegal or unethical, and none of this is anything dreadful in any way. But it's all a little embarrassing, for sure, as I was simply so dumb about how I handled it all.
~~~

Kevin Moore wrote to me a couple of days ago. I don't have permission to quote his email publicly, but I can copy my two replies.

~~~

Kevin, Hi there, and many thanks. I posted the entire story publicly here nearly a couple of years ago:


http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104824-Bill-Ryan-s-personal-Question-and-Answer-thread.-Pile-it-on.--&p=1264043&viewfull=1#post1264043

Please take a look, and do please read it carefully... there was no dishonesty of any kind. That's exactly what happened.

My only mistake — but one I'd like definitely to turn the clock back and rectify! — was not responding properly to the court case.

It's embarrassing, of course, and I wish it hadn't happened! But I never did anything in any way wrong or unethical, and there's not a thing I can do about it now.

All my best ~ Bill~~~

He emailed me again. So I replied a second time:

~~~

Hi again, Kevin — thanks again, but I don't know how I can explain what happened any more clearly.

I do hope you had time to read my forum post! All the information was there. If I had anything to hide, I'm sure I'd have been uncomfortable answering the question publicly.

The charcoal sketch (it wasn't really a 'painting': there's a good photo of it on my post) actually formally belonged to my mother, but was sold by me with her full permission, as she was very much in her twilight years then. I even had a letter from her authorizing me to sell it for her.

After I'd contacted a number of agents I found on the net (I know very little about the art world!), it was sold in good faith with a certificate of authenticity from a Picasso expert (Dr Mallen, in Texas), who described it in his catalog. Without that, of course, I'd never have been able to sell it at all.

And Lisa bought it in equally good faith. Nothing fraudulent occurred! When my father was given the sketch, I was 5 or 6 years old. :) I didn't know my father's art collector friend! I was just a kid. It was always one of those things that was in the family, as a kind of curiosity.

As best I understand, the entire problem only arose when Lisa was told that her client could not sell it on to another buyer. I wish that was not the case, and I wish none of that had happened. But the art world seems to be very fickle. There was not a thing I could do about any of that.

The transaction was not fraudulent! Lisa had the certificate of authenticity, but apparently it wasn't accepted by her client's buyer when he tried to sell it on.

So it was all a giant mess, which I totally regret. Absolutely, for sure! And when it suddenly turned into a court case, that really took me by surprise.

I was living in Switzerland at the time, about 3 years later. All I did, really naively, was I picked up the phone and talked openly to Lisa's lawyer, just like I'm 'talking' to you now. I simply told him the truth about what had happened.

But of course, I wasn't talking to a judge! :) I was talking to the lawyer whose job it was to sue me. Like you, I'm a very trusting person, and I simply answered all his questions. We had what I thought was a very friendly, open conversation.

I told him everything I knew, just as I have here and earlier. I had this silly idea that he sounded like a decent person, and so he'd be sure to understand. (But that's not how the American legal system works!)

As best I know, at first the court case was dismissed, but then I was told later it had been reversed on appeal. I never had a lawyer, was never in court, and barely ever knew a thing about it.

So (a) I was never dishonest, ever, in any way, and (b) I definitely WAS totally naive in the way I handled the court case and the lawyer who contacted me. In that respect (i.e. the court case and the lawyer), I was just like a child, really.

That was all really dumb of me. But I wasn't even in the US at the time, and had no idea what to do. It all sucked, and — I've said it so many times! — I do wish I could turn back the clock and handle the whole thing differently.

But 'dishonest' — no. I'm not that in any way, and I've absolutely not defrauded anyone in my life as best as I'm aware. I'm sure you know I'm not like that.

I do hope all this makes sense, and you can empathize a little... Kevin, I really can't explain it all any better.

All my best ~ Bill

~~~

Here's the video. I doubt if I'll watch it! I'm certain it paints me in a pretty horrific light. I'm happy to answer all questions, if I can — of course.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzUdeLI6x2w

[Strat]

Maybe off topic but I'm actually related to Picasso via my mothers side of the family. Her maiden name isn't Picasso but we have an old hand written genealogical map (or whatever it's called) showing our relations. It was later confirmed via ancestry.com.

I'm not really interested in the video, Kevin Moore is the worst. I respect you Bill but I don't understand why you engage with him.

[Rawhide68]

Thanks Bill
I wish I could read the words from Kevin Moore, but as you write he didn't agree to that (strange? ...) " I don't have permission to quote his email publicly "

Just out of curiosity, I can't see the signature "enlargement of the signature: "P. Ruiz Picasso"
Maybe someone in the forum could help out ?

I sometimes listen to Kevin Moore and some of he's interviews are really good.
As a matter of fact I agree with him about he's critisim about Kerry Casssidy's belief in Mark Richards.

[RunningDeer]

Bill, I’ve sent you an email. No need to respond. I didn’t want to add it on the open forum because it’s exactly what Moore feeds on.


THE ISNN (https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/themooreshowofficial) - International Spiritual News Network
http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/Dark-Journalist/ISNN.jpg



♡

[Bill Ryan]

Just out of curiosity, I can't see the signature "enlargement of the signature: "P. Ruiz Picasso"
Maybe someone in the forum could help out ?

Yes, it's a little hard to see from the photo. (It was easier to see it on the real thing.) My father was told that P. Ruiz Picasso was always how he signed his early work. (Dr Eugene Mallen, who provided the certificate of authenticity, dated it to 1903.)


As a matter of fact I agree with him about his criticism about Kerry Cassidy's belief in Mark Richards.Yes, I do, too. I'd always told Kevin that.

[Kryztian]

When I heard Kevin Moore was going to make a documentary about the Mark Richard's case, I thought it would be a real service to humanity. When he began to reveal how dysfunctional and egomanical he was during his short time here on Project Avalon, my doubts grew. Frankly, I do not think now he is ever going to complete his "documentary" and that is probably a good thing.

Although he and this art dealer "Lisa" do lots and lots of whining and complaining, they offer absolutely no proof or evidence that you did anything other than try to accurately describe the provenance of the drawing you had and sell it in good faith. What this has to do with the Mark Richards story or what you even have to do with it is completely beyond me.

I think somewhere Kevin Moore said he wanted to be like Oprah. I remember the early days of Oprah, where she always told stories that had victims and victimizers, everything in black and white. I think some people have followed up on some of the stories and shown that there were a lot of shades of grey and that Oprah broadcasting a distorted version of the story had a unfairly damaging effect on people's lives. I think Oprah has moved beyond that now, but Kevin Moore is almost a bad parody of that.

I think one of these days Kevin's need to publicly slander people on Youtube (to aggrandize his own ego) is going to get him in a lot of trouble.

[Tyy1907]

What an unfortunate mess.

That being said this changes absolutely nothing of my affinity for Bill and this forum.

And its pretty brutal for a youtube "influencer" to look for dirt on somebody and title their video as such. Accomplishes nothing.

[Sue (Ayt)]

The whole affair from 14 years ago sounds like it should be between the original authenticator who issued the certificate and the daughter who simply didn't recognize it. No one was scammed except (possibly) by the person who issued the certificate of authenticity. Isn't that the official job of the Art Authenticator? Does he hold no responsibility?

Who holds the painting now? Sounds to me like it still could be a valuable piece, and it appears the art dealer must have it still. Have others examined the authenticity, I wonder? The whole thing is quite fishy sounding, and the Art world, according to many, is full of dealings in the shady underworld - ie money laundering and illegal purchases and such.

[meeradas]

*yawn*
Moore again.
*snore*

[araucaria]

The real problem is over provenance, money only indirectly. If you claim, for whatever benefit, to be a descendant of the Queen of Sheba, you need to produce an unbroken genealogy taking us from her to you. If you are the ‘one careful owner’ selling a secondhand car, best have the original sale deed and all the maintenance invoices. If you are applying for a job, you better not have too many gaps in your CV suggesting you were out of work for much of the time; your prospective employer might baulk at what has been left unsaid. Etc.


Emile Wolf seems to have made a generous spontaneous gift of this drawing, but I gather the gift was undocumented, innocently slipping into the above type of scenario. If there had been a certificate of donation by Emile Wolf, including where he got it from, then the provenance would have been clear. The trouble is, when an unknown artwork turns up somewhere like this – no need to go to a dark corner of Africa – then alarm bells will inevitably start going off. Art forgery is a huge problem: see this story (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/30/french-museum-discovers-half-collection-fakes), “'Catastrophe': French museum discovers half of its collection are fakes”

[sijohn]

Kevin Moore , I have listened to much of his early stuff and have been less than impressed with most of it , although if I recall the corey goode and mark richards videos definitely have merit , instinctively I disliked him and his style as it only seems self serving with a thin veneer of concern for the truth. Speaking of the truth he has openly confessed to a less than perfect past himself which many would possibly find interesting and imformative, he has a video of this somewhere on youtube/his own channel , I really cant be bothered to search it out.

The story of Bill and the painting, um, well unfortunate and misjudged perhaps , the conversation between Kevin Moore and the women art dealer is something else , if she is to be taken at her word a damning testimony IF much of it is true.

I find it very sad when this sort of thing happens on a personal note because , is it true, partly true , complete vindictive nonsense, complete smokescreen or deliberate damnation of a person to discredit them and their work but , that seems to be the way of the world especially at the moment , do l have doubts? , my bull**** detector is very tired at the moment.

[Billy]

I know nothing about the art world.
But it appears to me that legally the dispute should be between Dr. Enrique Mallen from the on-line Picasso project whom gave the art work a certificate of authenticity and Maya Widmaier-Picasso who believed the art work was not a genuine Picasso ?

As far as I can gather, no one knows yet if it is genuine or a fake ?

[snoman]

I have always been curious as to how Atticus/Charles managed to help out in respect to the case. I recall him telling me when he came to stay at mine that the buyers who were feeling stung had invested cartel money in this piece? Did he get you off a hook like he professed?

[Adi]

My positive opinion of Bill Ryan is not changed by this story. It's a story, granted the facts aren't the greatest, but taking a global view of Bill, his work, etc, etc, I do not detect malice in anything here. In my opinion, nothing to see here!

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

A fascinating story thank you for sharing it Bill. How sad, and also typical, that a vulture would swoop in and use it to malign and scandalize your name, as if they have no higher purpose than to sully reputations. But that's the way of the media world, even in internet land.

What is your opinion of the drawing today? Do you believe it really is and always was genuine? I know nothing of the art world, although I believe Sue is correct, it's one of many vehicles with which large sums of money are laundered quietly. But if it was authenticated by an expert, I see no reason why this isn't real. I am very glad you initially got a nice sum for it though, so I suppose it doesn't matter anymore!

I can just about read the signature when enhanced.

44507

[RunningDeer]

Kevin Moore, you never have anything complimentary to say about anyone. You’re a destroyer of all that’s good.

A question worth pursuing is, “Am I able to think from the heart and less from the infected technology that continues to consume my humanity?”

Do you rationalize? “I’m making a difference in the world. I’m rooting out all that’s evil.”

Spend your time wisely. Overhaul the inner AI tech that pushes those buttons and levers. The clock is ticking down.


http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/hypnotize.gifhttp://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/im-ok.gif

http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/puppet-strings.gif

[Bill Ryan]

What is your opinion of the drawing today? Do you believe it really is and always was genuine? I know nothing of the art world.Me neither. :)

Several years after my father was given the sketch (when we were living in Ghana, and I was a small kid), we all returned to England when I was aged 8, so I could go to school.

He then sent the sketch to Sotheby's (the well-known London auction house) for their opinion. They immediately verified it as an interesting unknown Picasso, and insured it for £4000 while it was in their possession. (That was around 1961-62, so that equates to about £60,000 in 2005, when it was sold.)

My father just decided to hang on to it as a family asset. Every now and then he'd show it to someone who knew about these things, and it'd always arouse interest and approval.

I do know he had a lot of correspondence about it (including with Emile Wolf), but we moved around a great deal back then, and he died in 1986. I no longer have any of the records at all.

The problem is really with how the art world works. It's not a very attractive sketch! Not the kind of thing someone would hang on their wall above the fireplace. :) Most works of art like that are bought and sold purely as speculative investments. It's like buying stocks when you think they're sure to go up.

So when Maya Picasso disavowed it, despite Dr Mallen's certificate of authenticity, the sketch was "burned".

That's the colloquial term I was told is used in the art world when the authenticity of a work comes into doubt. In a way, it doesn't even matter whether a work IS authentic or not. It's the received opinion (or doubt) about it: all about its perceived market investment value as an asset.

The doubt or controversy then destroys its value as an investment, because it's then so hard to sell it on again. It actually all about the money. Almost nothing else.

The problem at my end was compounded because the reason I sold it was because Kelly and I had just bought a large house in California, right at the peak of the real estate market. I'd thought THAT was a good investment, but it went "under water" quickly. I'd had to borrow a LOT of $$$ from good friends just to keep up the mortgage payments. So the Picasso proceeds went straight to pay off those debts.

In the end, we had to sell the house at a huge loss (which had been in Kelly's name, how come she was caught up in all this). That was at the beginning of 2006, I think. Kelly filed for bankruptcy (which was really tough on her, because she'd done nothing wrong at all). I didn't actually go bankrupt, but I barely had a penny to my name. It was all a massive terrible mess for everyone.

~~~

I was thinking this morning abut the mistakes I'd made. Many reading this may have had similar experiences: when something goes wrong, but the cause of that was this decision a couple months earlier, and the cause of that was that decision which was earlier still.

Like a chain reaction of dominoes, all falling inexorably towards where they're headed.

The basic mistake I made was leaving Scotland, and my very rewarding self-made career as a team development and leadership consultant, in early 2005 to relocate in the US (part-time: I'm not a US resident).

That was the core bad decision. And that was also how come I had the free time to get involved in the Serpo project at the end of 2005 — see this very interesting thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?16571-Project-Serpo--aka-Project-Crystal-Knight--the-whole-story) — and 6 months later, Project Camelot.

If I had ONE opportunity to go back in time, just one time, and do things differently, it'd be back to the start of 2005 when I sold my house in Scotland and left for the US. That was the life-changing, bad-call blunder.

I was always a risk-taker (which is how come my life has always been fairly interesting), but that was a major, major mistake. I made other bad calls after that (some nearly as bad, one of which is how come I ended up in Ecuador, which was never planned), but that was the timeline-branching root of it all.

But then, we're definitely into timeline discussions. :) If I'd not done that, and soon after lost everything I had, would I have become involved with Camelot, and then Avalon, and then be here now?

Maybe via some other route... but maybe not. These things are by definition unknowable, or at least pretty difficult to be clear about. :)

Please forgive the stream of consciousness! You may understand I've been thinking quite a lot about all this the last day or two. :flower:

:focus:

[Gracy]

Hi Bill. This may be a bit off topic as well but, it actually is is an important element of the whole story, because without it there would be no story at all.

I can't help but wonder what an artsy fartsy, big city slicker art collector like Emile Wolf, was doing wandering around Ghana with a then unknown charcoal drawing from Picasso, in the first place.

Seems a rather odd circumstance doesn't it? Did your dad ever elaborate on that?

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

But then, we're definitely into timeline discussions. :) If I'd not done that, and soon after lost everything I had, would I have become involved with Camelot, and then Avalon, and then be here now?

You nailed it at the end, it was exactly what I was thinking - had you not left Scotland you most likely would not have ended up where you did with Project Camelot, and no Camelot = no Avalon. Everything that happened, happened for a reason, a hidden (at the time), higher reason, which led to where you are now, in not only bringing us all together in this fabulous community, but landing up in Ecuador - a pretty good spot from all I gather!

Who knows, in another timeline or another dimension it did all fall differently, where you're still in Scotland, not in Ecuador, and as a result there is no Avalon. Personally I'm glad I'm in this version of time, not that one.

[Bill Ryan]

Hi Bill. This may be a bit off topic as well but, it actually is is an important element of the whole story, because without it there would be no story at all.

I can't help but wonder what an artsy fartsy, big city slicker art collector like Emile Wolf, was doing wandering around Ghana with a then unknown charcoal drawing from Picasso, in the first place.

Seems a rather odd circumstance doesn't it? Did your dad ever elaborate on that?I have no idea! I was only 5 or 6 years old at the time.

But in those days, there weren't many Englishmen or Americans in West Africa. (My father was actually Canadian, and had a strong North American accent.)

So expats like that would be very likely to hear about one another, and meet up. What Emile Wolf was doing with the charcoal sketch in Ghana, I have no idea.

Maybe he'd just come from Europe before heading back to the US, and had acquired it there, or had been given it himself by a friend. (My father said Emile knew it was uncataloged, so it was probably of limited value to him.) We'll probably never know.

[RunningDeer]

http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/write.gif
Bill care to address this accusation by Kevin Moore? It's been addressed elsewhere on the forum. I ask this for the new members.




@32ish minutes: Project Avalon is looking into the private messages of its users. This possibly could be done by some of Bill’s moderators, but definitely is being done by Bill Ryan as well.

[Bill Ryan]

http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/write.gif
Bill care to address this accusation by Kevin Moore? It's been addressed elsewhere. I ask this for the new members.


@32ish minutes: Project Avalon is looking into the private messages of its users. This possibly could be done by some of Bill’s moderators, but definitely is being done by Bill Ryan as well.
Yes, many thanks, and that's easy to address. :thumbsup:

It's a smear-rumor that's just never quite ever gone away. And I have NO idea who originally started it, or when or why.

We don't read members' PMs, and can't, and never have. And wouldn't even if we could!

It can be done with a special plugin, as best I understand. But we don't have that installed.

As best I recall, Ilie Pandia (who was our senior admin for many years, and a genuine expert on vBulletin, the software platform we use) said that Richard (Avalon's admin back in 2010-11) did have that installed in his era. And if so, we don't know if he ever used it or not. But then Ilie UNinstalled it immediately he discovered it.

To confirm this — if anyone reading this doesn't trust me and needs any other reassurance! — any of our current administrators (Tommy (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?440-Tommy), Frank V (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?21776-Frank-V), Franny (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?1971-Franny) or Tintin (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?32113-Tintin)) can look on our admin control panel to see what plugins we have installed, and what each of them do. Frank, who's very familiar with the system and is here every day, may be very happy to say something about all this.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I'd let Bill answer, but from everything that I'm aware of, and from what I saw when I was briefly a mod, that was definitely not happening. I'm very certain it is actually impossible for anyone to read another member's PMs - even Admins. A preposterous allegation.

[Frank V]

http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/write.gif
Bill care to address this accusation by Kevin Moore? It's been addressed elsewhere. I ask this for the new members.




@32ish minutes: Project Avalon is looking into the private messages of its users. This possibly could be done by some of Bill’s moderators, but definitely is being done by Bill Ryan as well.



If you don't mind, Paula, then I would like to address that in Bill's stead. :)

As most of you will already know by now ─ from having seen us mention it on several technical threads ─ Project Avalon is running the vBulletin forum engine, and for that matter, an already old version of vBulletin. The vBulletin platform as it ships from its developers is pretty bare-bones. However, the developers did include a so-called "hooks" system, which is a programming interface that can be used by third-party developers for writing plugins for vBulletin.

In and of itself, vBulletin does not offer any staff member the ability to read the private messages of other members. But a plugin for doing so has indeed already been created ─ or that is to say, there may actually be multiple such plugins, but we know of only one.

You may even wonder why such a plugin was developed in the first place, but this was not for the ominous reasons that people might suspect. On the contrary, the vBulletin platform is used quite a lot as the engine behind corporate support forums, as well as various other types of forums, and the plugin for viewing members' private messages was developed for in the event that someone might be abusing the private messaging system for truly nefarious purposes, such as threatening, spreading child pornography, et al. In such cases, the plugin in question could offer legal evidence.

The above all said...



Project Avalon does not have any such plugin installed, nor will we ever do this


... and we are all adamantly against that. In fact, Bill himself recalled that former administrator Richard did have the plugin installed ─ for legal purposes, most likely ─ and Bill found out about this when Richard left and Ilie Pandia took over from him. Ilie was a bona fide vBulletin developer, and he discovered this plugin in the forum installation. Bill then immediately told Ilie to remove the plugin, and he did.

I am an administrator here. If such a plugin were installed here, then I'd know about it. Besides, as I said already, we are all ethically opposed to it.

[araucaria]

Back to Picasso.
Someone with no particular interest in art WILL think it is all about money and investment, but for someone whose interest in art is equivalent to yours in politics, UFOs or whatever, it is all about art! You’d be amazed how much art historians can deduce even from some obscure drawing. They are trying to piece together the bigger picture of who and what a given artist was and was doing, just as we are doing here with con artists and others. Asking whether or not Picasso drew this is exactly the same thing, in these days of fake news and faked videos, as asking whether or not Donald Trump made this or that outrageous statement. If you are trying to build up a picture of Trump as a major asset to humanity, then you will wish to believe and would welcome evidence tending to show that he did not.

To take a reverse instance, when Edgar Degas died, his brother removed and destroyed most of his drawings of brothel scenes, as being too pornographic for the positive image of the artist that he wished to create or maintain. Had they come to light, he would have had to denounce them as forgeries, which they were not. What if anything is to be concluded from their existence, non-existence or destruction is not relevant here. The bottom line is simply that the more we know about something the more we can understand. A wrong attribution or interpretation can destroy someone’s reputation. We all make mistakes, sometimes big ones, not always in bad faith. One big mistake is seeking to cash in on other people’s.

The lesson here is in seeing that if you can have this false, or partially false, view of art as being all about investment and money laundering, then other people are going to dispute your own higher motives for doing whatever you are doing. If it is say alternative research, then there is this huge gap to be bridged in order to reach these people.

[Kryztian]

I can't help but wonder what an artsy fartsy, big city slicker art collector like Emile Wolf, was doing wandering around Ghana with a then unknown charcoal drawing from Picasso, in the first place.

I have no idea! I was only 5 or 6 years old at the time.


This is speculation on my part, but Picasso was inspired by African art and sculpture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_African_Period) and is an artist who might be described as being a "Primitivist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivism)". Also, African art became quite collectable in the 60s and 70s and I am sure that many savy gallery owners visited West Africa at this time to acquire such art and were able to see it for a tremendous profit back in Europe or North America. Knowing that people do sometimes barter instead of receiving cash payments, he may have bought the print with him to trade.

[Patient]

It is a shame that computers have altered art the way it has.

Of course, there are some amazing computer artists and if you consider the colour and composition in some of their work then you can see the talent. If their picture was displayed hanging on a wall, it would have a different impact..

Looking at the pictures only on a monitor is probably why some people might feel that computer art is not as good as art produced prior to the home computer age.

Another thing lacking (imho of course) is the changing of the styles. Impressionism, cubism, etc,...we have "computer art". New styles are explored based upon the release of new art software.

Similar to electronic music - the electronic musician is hoping to be one of the few to take advantage of the release of new electronic music software.

How times change....am I now being one of those people who does not like the changes (or lack of change is some cases).

Or am I missing or just not seeing "what's new"?

I think the economy - or capitalism - has affected the arts in a bad way.

Where are "the movements" in art and music these days? How do you find it?

I am sorry - I have gone on a rant and slipped away from the thread.

Actually, maybe I can reel it back in.

The problem Bill faced - if I have it correct - is that the picture could not be proven to be an original. But compared to current artwork on computers I believe it would be much easier to identify the Piccaso than someone's PC art. I think it would be easier to mess around with a pic on a computer to identify who did it as opposed to an original signed pencil or charcoal
drawing.

[araucaria]

I can't help but wonder what an artsy fartsy, big city slicker art collector like Emile Wolf, was doing wandering around Ghana with a then unknown charcoal drawing from Picasso, in the first place.

I have no idea! I was only 5 or 6 years old at the time.


This is speculation on my part, but Picasso was inspired by African art and sculpture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_African_Period) and is an artist who might be described as being a "Primitivist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivism)". Also, African art became quite collectable in the 60s and 70s and I am sure that many savy gallery owners visited West Africa at this time to acquire such art and were able to see it for a tremendous profit back in Europe or North America. Knowing that people do sometimes barter instead of receiving cash payments, he may have bought the print with him to trade.
Yes, of course, very interesting, why didn’t I think of that? :) Even today African art is dirt cheap. Maybe the immense favour by Mr Ryan senior was to supply some artefact(s) in exchange – although of course a small child might think he had saved him from a crocodile-infested river or something.


The Picasso turns out to be pretty valuable, although he later used these things to pay restaurant bills etc. The original favour may have been equally small. The problem with art is that we fetichize it: make it far bigger than it really is. Which goes for many other things in life, most notably perhaps, conspiracy theory :)

[araucaria]

The problem Bill faced - if I have it correct - is that the picture could not be proven to be an original. But compared to current artwork on computers I believe it would be much easier to identify the Piccaso than someone's PC art. I think it would be easier to mess around with a pic on a computer to identify who did it as opposed to an original signed pencil or charcoal
drawing.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. I don’t know much about computer artwork, but the problems (or maybe not) we are talking about are to do with freehand art – very free hand in some cases. Take Banksy copying Monet: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/18/banksy-show-me-the-monet-tribute-on-sale-sothebys-auction He illustrates the thesis of an essay by Leo Steinberg, ‘The Glorious Company’, whose several chapters – Rustling, The Stainless Steal, The Cover-up, and Caconomasia – illustrate the central thesis:

Whatever else art is good for, its chief effectiveness lies in propagating more art. Or: Of all the things art has an impact on, art is the most susceptible and responsive. All art is infested by other art.
I would suggest that, whatever our field of activity, we all take note. X reads a book, and then writes a book, which inspires reader Y to write another. Now, for ‘book’, read ‘forum post’, or whatever. Rupert Sheldrake’ s morphic resonance is based on a hundred monkeys copying each other, until every monkey is doing the same thing. Terence McKenna’s 2012 event was supposed to be a moment of maximum novelty. Of course art is infested; but real art lies in its novelty. But of course, novelty doesn’t come like a bolt from the blue: fire – the technology, as opposed to the natural phenomenon of lightning – was discovered by rubbing two dry old sticks together.

Originality is over-rated: who cares who discovered fire, invented the wheel, did this drawing...

PS: If ever you see a print signed ‘Piccaso’, don’t buy it! :)

[janette]

I trust and love you bill..there I said it 😁xx

[AutumnW]

Bill,

You appear to have been operating in good faith with what would have been judged as proper authentification at the time the drawing was given to your father.

The whole matter of authenticity has come under increased scrutiny in the last 20 years, with much much more money at stake than a mere 105,000.00 I am certain some innocent parties have been wiped out completely and I don't know if insurance companies are equipped to deal with all the ins and outs, as the process of authenticity requires more and more proof.

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

So, I guess, as she suggested on the video, paying her off slowly, month by month, would be the way to go. Just a suggestion. I am in no way, biased towards a gallery owner I have never met, over you, I just think it is best to be as much on the up and up as humanly possible, or this thing is going to follow you around like a bed smell.

Take care, Bill. I am so sorry you are going through this.

[TomKat]

Seems to me that if the gallery owner has the drawing again, then all is settled. She bought a drawing with a COA from that expert, she did not buy a drawing with a COA from Picasso's daughter. Now if Bill had given her a forged COA from Picasso's daughter, that would be fraud. But she still has the drawing with the COA she purchased. She can still try to sell it on with the COA from the expert, with full disclosure, perhaps at a loss.

[Bill Ryan]

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

Yes, I'm certainly prepared to believe Lisa's on-record statement that she had no insurance. I really did think she must have had, and I was assured that by a friend who knew the art world quite well. ("Of course she was insured", I was told. "All art dealers are.")

For the record, Kevin emailed me exactly this last night, and he said I could quote it if it was 100% unaltered. I told him I'd be happy to respond on the thread, as I have here.
LISA THE ART DEALER WAS NEVER COMPENSATED BY ANY INSURANCE STOP LIEING YOU HEARD HER ON THE PHONE SHE WAS COVEERED BY NOTHING YOU RIPPED HER OFF BY NOT TRYING TO PAY HER BACK YOU LIER

[happyuk]

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

Yes, I'm certainly prepared to believe Lisa's on-record statement that she had no insurance. I really did think she must have had, and I was assured that by a friend who knew the art world quite well. ("Of course she was insured", I was told. "All art dealers are.")

For the record, Kevin emailed me exactly this last night, and he said I could quote it if it was 100% unaltered. I told him I'd be happy to respond on the thread, as I have here.
LISA THE ART DEALER WAS NEVER COMPENSATED BY ANY INSURANCE STOP LIEING YOU HEARD HER ON THE PHONE SHE WAS COVEERED BY NOTHING YOU RIPPED HER OFF BY NOT TRYING TO PAY HER BACK YOU LIER

Good lord, this guy certainly knows how to hate, if not how to spell.

[TomKat]

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

Yes, I'm certainly prepared to believe Lisa's on-record statement that she had no insurance. I really did think she must have had, and I was assured that by a friend who knew the art world quite well. ("Of course she was insured", I was told. "All art dealers are.")

For the record, Kevin emailed me exactly this last night, and he said I could quote it if it was 100% unaltered. I told him I'd be happy to respond on the thread, as I have here.
LISA THE ART DEALER WAS NEVER COMPENSATED BY ANY INSURANCE STOP LIEING YOU HEARD HER ON THE PHONE SHE WAS COVEERED BY NOTHING YOU RIPPED HER OFF BY NOT TRYING TO PAY HER BACK YOU LIER

I know enough about debt collection to say that the worst thing Bill could do is send Lisa a partial payment. Perhaps that's why Kevin is trying to get Bill to do that. That would be an acknowledgement that the debt was valid. Debt collectors trying to collect an old debt will try to get a payment of a dollar. That starts the credit cycle again and puts the debt back on the credit report. A defaulted debt should stay in default or be negotiated for a lower, paid-in-full, payment. But I doubt Bill owes Lisa anything. She got exactly what she paid for, not the bargain she thought she could double her money on.

I'm glad Kevin is using a video format because it's clear he's not very literate.

[Strat]

Bill care to address this accusation by Kevin Moore?

As Bill posted previously (in a different thread) I wanted to leave my guide/moderator position and return as a normal member. You know what position I'd love to have: Avalon press secretary.
https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/74758800/oh-you-were-finished-well-allow-me-to-retort.jpg

Joking aside, again, don't feed the trolls. Oh and this isn't a shot at you, you're truly one of my favorite members. If you're ever in FL I'll show you the Timucua trails you'd love it.

[sunwings]

So when Maya Picasso disavowed it, despite Dr Mallen's certificate of authenticity, the sketch was "burned".


The letter sent to Lisa from Maya Picasso simply read "I already responded and responded again that I do not believe this is the work of my father's hand. Sorry."

My father left me a gold watch when he died. It has a certificate of authentification from a Jewellers in Liverpool dated 1979 (which I don't fully trust:blushing:). I also may have to sell it one day to pay my debts. But if I did sell it, then some years later the buyer wanted a refund for whatever reason I would feel under no obligation to do so.

This could be cultural but in England when selling a car for example, you get the buyer to sign a paper saying SOLD AS SEEN! When Bill´s father accepted the painting he also took on the risk of the painting being worthless. That risk was then passed onto Lisa, BUT in an honest way! The painting could be an original Picasso, it could be a fake but it´s caused a domino effect of problems for sure!

[AutumnW]

But I doubt Bill owes Lisa anything. She got exactly what she paid for, not the bargain she thought she could double her money on.

No, TomKat,

Lisa obviously didn't get what she paid for if Picasso's daughter is to be believed. I am in no way trying to undercut Bill here, just wanting to see the situation clearly, putting myself in the shoes of both Bill and Lisa. I think Bill has indicated, more or less, that the debt is valid, with many extenuating circumstances. There is no need to cast aspersions on Lisa's character. She's as innocent a victim in the weird world of art authenticity as Bill is.

You definitely want to stick up for your friends, but sometimes the best way to stick up for them is to help them find a path out of a situation that doesn't demonize anybody. That just adds adrenaline to a legal matter that lawyers feed on.

[RunningDeer]

If you're ever in FL I'll show you the Timucua trails you'd love it.

http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/Love/thank-you-Strat3.jpg
♡

[AutumnW]

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

Yes, I'm certainly prepared to believe Lisa's on-record statement that she had no insurance. I really did think she must have had, and I was assured that by a friend who knew the art world quite well. ("Of course she was insured", I was told. "All art dealers are.")

For the record, Kevin emailed me exactly this last night, and he said I could quote it if it was 100% unaltered. I told him I'd be happy to respond on the thread, as I have here.
LISA THE ART DEALER WAS NEVER COMPENSATED BY ANY INSURANCE STOP LIEING YOU HEARD HER ON THE PHONE SHE WAS COVEERED BY NOTHING YOU RIPPED HER OFF BY NOT TRYING TO PAY HER BACK YOU LIER

Oh my Dog, that man has Dyslexia, or something! Is he angry because you booted him off the forum for arguing over tangential minutiae, with some other equally side tracked party on a thread about a murderer?

The thread became a tangled mess composed of verbal silly string. Yeah, I remember that thread. I'm still picking the gunk out of my hair. And that set him on this weird personal vendetta? Hmmm. Some people are kind of obsessive.

I totally get that you believed she was insured. I would have thought the same, had I been you.

[AutumnW]

Seems to me that if the gallery owner has the drawing again, then all is settled. She bought a drawing with a COA from that expert, she did not buy a drawing with a COA from Picasso's daughter. Now if Bill had given her a forged COA from Picasso's daughter, that would be fraud. But she still has the drawing with the COA she purchased. She can still try to sell it on with the COA from the expert, with full disclosure, perhaps at a loss.

This makes a certain amount of sense, too. Thanks, TomKat

[AutumnW]

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

Yes, I'm certainly prepared to believe Lisa's on-record statement that she had no insurance. I really did think she must have had, and I was assured that by a friend who knew the art world quite well. ("Of course she was insured", I was told. "All art dealers are.")

For the record, Kevin emailed me exactly this last night, and he said I could quote it if it was 100% unaltered. I told him I'd be happy to respond on the thread, as I have here.
LISA THE ART DEALER WAS NEVER COMPENSATED BY ANY INSURANCE STOP LIEING YOU HEARD HER ON THE PHONE SHE WAS COVEERED BY NOTHING YOU RIPPED HER OFF BY NOT TRYING TO PAY HER BACK YOU LIER

I know enough about debt collection to say that the worst thing Bill could do is send Lisa a partial payment. Perhaps that's why Kevin is trying to get Bill to do that. That would be an acknowledgement that the debt was valid. Debt collectors trying to collect an old debt will try to get a payment of a dollar. That starts the credit cycle again and puts the debt back on the credit report. A defaulted debt should stay in default or be negotiated for a lower, paid-in-full, payment. But I doubt Bill owes Lisa anything. She got exactly what she paid for, not the bargain she thought she could double her money on.

I'm glad Kevin is using a video format because it's clear he's not very literate.

So, if I understand correctly, do you feel that there are enough grey areas here that the whole case should be rendered invalid?

[Strat]

Where's Satori when you need him?

[AutumnW]

I can't help but wonder what an artsy fartsy, big city slicker art collector like Emile Wolf, was doing wandering around Ghana with a then unknown charcoal drawing from Picasso, in the first place.

I have no idea! I was only 5 or 6 years old at the time.


This is speculation on my part, but Picasso was inspired by African art and sculpture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_African_Period) and is an artist who might be described as being a "Primitivist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivism)". Also, African art became quite collectable in the 60s and 70s and I am sure that many savy gallery owners visited West Africa at this time to acquire such art and were able to see it for a tremendous profit back in Europe or North America. Knowing that people do sometimes barter instead of receiving cash payments, he may have bought the print with him to trade.

Excellent speculation, Kryztian. I was thinking too that Picasso did several warehouses of paintings and sketches and it would be really easy to miss documenting cataloguing everything. Authentication relies not just on style but on materials used, paper stock etc...If the sketch doesn't appear to his daughter to be done by her father, she could be mistaken. This is about as grey an area as there can possibly be. Modern material analysis makes it a little more easy, but still doesn't guarantee a slam dunk.

[Justplain]

Some eccentrics go to Africa for the indigenous art, which I believe is quite abundant and creative.

[Satori]

Where's Satori when you need him?

Well, as is often the case, legal claims can be viewed from more than one or two perspectives.

Bill, it seems from what I gathered, exercised due diligence getting the COA. The art dealer who bought the sketch on the faith of the COA may or may not have exercised due diligence vetting the COA and the person who issued it. I do not know. Do any of us?

In every case the material relevant facts must be considered; which are often not fully known or presented. Then, of course, there is the applicable law. The law breaks down generally into two categories: substantive law and procedural law. The former is basically whether and why you have a claim, or not, based upon case law, statutes, etc... The latter is how you, as a litigant, go about prosecuting or defending against a lawsuit. They are both important. Both have consequences.

Procedure, is as important, if not more so, than substance. A part of procedure is time. Cases must be filed timely. Things must be done timely. An example is the statute of limitations. Also, judgments must be collected in a timely manner.

If I were Bill’s lawyer at this time my first set of questions would be: is there a judgment against him, from what state, and when was it obtained? (I think I read California but I’m not clear on the date of any judgment.)

If there is a judgment and there was no timely appeal, as a matter of law, it is very likely that at this time there is nothing Bill can do about it.

But, if the judgment is stale, as a matter of law, he owes no one anything. By stale I mean that the time in which the judgment can be enforced has expired.

One cannot sit on one’s rights for too long.

[Sadieblue]

Seems to me that being an art dealer, Lisa should have had it checked by
her choice of of an appraiser before she bought it from you just to cover her butt.
I certainly would have. Besides you paid an appraiser $3,000 to have it checked, so you were already out
that much money. Did you have a receipt for your appraiser, sounds like he may have been the one who should have been contacted by Lisa, edited to add...Of all of the artist numerous paintings how could his daughter know each and everyone, did she check it in person or by a photo sent to her.

[Franny]

Not much for me to say that hasn't already been said regarding the drawing. My naïve, possibly more commonsensical view would be that Bill performed his due diligence by hiring a professional, the dealer purchased it based on the professional certification and it was no longer in his control but in hers. The next move was between her and her buyer, Bill was out of the picture by then.

But that's not what we have a huge system of law libraries, lawyers, courtrooms, lawmakers and judges for.

Regarding the question of reading PMs, a big NO, from me as well. I have been thru' the Admin Control Panel and there is no plugin that allows it. Had I found one I would have been livid.

I had also heard the rumor that PMs could be read and it would have gone back to when Richard was admin. Anyone who was around then will remember the weird atmosphere and cliques. I would not have been surprised had it been true and it would have made sense. We were learning then that most social platforms "protected" privacy by keeping it from the public but using it in many other ways.

But a stroll thru' the ACP will find no PM reading plugin. Since Kevin has not been there he may not be the best person to comment in the affirmative.

[Gemma13]

What a load of old codswallop! 

So Lisa, the fledgling art dealer buys the Picasso believing in the authenticity certificate.

She then sells it, gets accused of selling a fake and decides to return the money.  If she didn't her reputation and future business in the art world would be seriously jeopardized.  THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT.  

She then tries to recover money from insurance and is denied.

We're talking about an investment world full of antique risk when painters are dead.  This is not like buying a piece of equipment and claiming insurance if it turns out to be faulty.  Quality control measures are in place in the art world but they are not infallible.

These investors know the risks.  It is their decision whether to take the risk or not.

If the Picasso is a fake then everyone along the chain of transfer was duped.  Trying to go back along the chain of transfer to recover funds is ridiculous.  The buck stops with the last buyer.

The only reason Lisa refunded the last buyer was to invest in and protect her future business dealings.  That's why she's playing the high moral card here.

It is irrelevant that the relative of Picasso claims it is a fake. Why wouldn't she.  Why allow a new piece to be circulated that doesn't belong to, and benefit, the family.


KEVIN MOORE when will you grow up and spend your time and energy on real con artists, real thieves, real stains on humanity? Oh that's right, you never will, because you're one of them.

You are a drama queen constantly looking for the next dollar on your click bait by now targetting public figures who have a substantial subscription to piggyback on.

And if ya wanna cry foul on the high moral ground, then people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

In January 2019 I watched this vlog of yours and made notes.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AxPqbsDWbgo

 In my notes @20:32 you say your past is all over the place; you're not perfect; when you had companies back in the day you were doing all sorts of crap; and then you learnt what's the right thing to do and the wrong thing and you continue to learn. 

Funny thing is that when I just rewatched @20:32 you are saying something different.  Going back over your vlog you have reinserted yourself to make changes.  How convenient.

At least @7:30 you confirm going into the adult industry but it didn't work out.  Bit dodgy though trying to attract minors with company name "Just 18 Ltd" (@26:30).

[TomKat]

But I doubt Bill owes Lisa anything. She got exactly what she paid for, not the bargain she thought she could double her money on.

No, TomKat,

Lisa obviously didn't get what she paid for if Picasso's daughter is to be believed. I am in no way trying to undercut Bill here, just wanting to see the situation clearly, putting myself in the shoes of both Bill and Lisa. I think Bill has indicated, more or less, that the debt is valid, with many extenuating circumstances. There is no need to cast aspersions on Lisa's character. She's as innocent a victim in the weird world of art authenticity as Bill is.

You definitely want to stick up for your friends, but sometimes the best way to stick up for them is to help them find a path out of a situation that doesn't demonize anybody. That just adds adrenaline to a legal matter that lawyers feed on.

She negotiated a price for a signed Picasso with a COA from an expert. She accepted that at the time, but changed her mind when another opinion surfaced. Only Picasso knows the truth, not his daughter, not anyone. Unless the COA was forged, she has no case. I sold something once that was not as good as I thought it was. I refunded the price of the repair. But it was sold as-is and I was under no obligation to do so.

[TomKat]

Lisa, the gallery owner, claims she refunded the purchaser but received no insurance money to cover her losses. This seems perfectly believable. It's also perfectly believable that you would have figured she was insured. She would have to prove to the court that she wasn't insured I imagine, before the case against you proceeded.

Yes, I'm certainly prepared to believe Lisa's on-record statement that she had no insurance. I really did think she must have had, and I was assured that by a friend who knew the art world quite well. ("Of course she was insured", I was told. "All art dealers are.")

For the record, Kevin emailed me exactly this last night, and he said I could quote it if it was 100% unaltered. I told him I'd be happy to respond on the thread, as I have here.
LISA THE ART DEALER WAS NEVER COMPENSATED BY ANY INSURANCE STOP LIEING YOU HEARD HER ON THE PHONE SHE WAS COVEERED BY NOTHING YOU RIPPED HER OFF BY NOT TRYING TO PAY HER BACK YOU LIER

I know enough about debt collection to say that the worst thing Bill could do is send Lisa a partial payment. Perhaps that's why Kevin is trying to get Bill to do that. That would be an acknowledgement that the debt was valid. Debt collectors trying to collect an old debt will try to get a payment of a dollar. That starts the credit cycle again and puts the debt back on the credit report. A defaulted debt should stay in default or be negotiated for a lower, paid-in-full, payment. But I doubt Bill owes Lisa anything. She got exactly what she paid for, not the bargain she thought she could double her money on.

I'm glad Kevin is using a video format because it's clear he's not very literate.

So, if I understand correctly, do you feel that there are enough grey areas here that the whole case should be rendered invalid?

I think the case would be thrown out of Judge Judy's court :-)

[Sue (Ayt)]

She negotiated a price for a signed Picasso with a COA from an expert. She accepted that at the time, but changed her mind when another opinion surfaced. Only Picasso knows the truth, not his daughter, not anyone. Unless the COA was forged, she has no case. I sold something once that was not as good as I thought it was. I refunded the price of the repair. But it was sold as-is and I was under no obligation to do so.

Plus - As I understand it, she held onto it for at least 2 years, and then sold it at quite a profit. She certainly could have researched it herself in those years of holding it, or at least contacted the person who authenticated it to be sure.

[scotslad]

Hi Bill
Sorry to hear about this.


I sought out Dr Enrique Mallen, of the On-line Picasso Project, and paid him $2,000 to examine the drawing. He pronounced it authentic, gave me a fornal certificate of authenticity, and placed it in his catalog.

Armed with that, I sought out an interested art dealer, and the drawing was sold — for something like (from memory) $120,000.

But then the buyer tried to sell it on. The buyer's potential client consulted Maya Widmaier-Picasso (Pablo Picasso's daughter), who said it was a fake. Then all hell broke loose.

If I like you, had read Dr Enrique Mallen’s credentials and works as per his site at

https://picasso.shsu.edu/mallen/PUBLICATIONS.html

I too, would have thought him an authority on the subject, and in having paid him $ to appraise the piece to which I received a piece of paper confirming authenticity, I’d think I’d taken “reasonable” care and effort.

Afterall, you didn’t issue the certificate of authenticity, a university professor specialising in this area did and placed the item in his published catalog of other genuine? Picasso items.

Very unfortunate, highly stressful and I’m sure valuable lessons learned (in hindsight) by all. Very unfortunate for all parties, and some major hard life lessons to be learned – for sure.

I’m sure every member on the forum (and the planet for that matter) has regrets of the past regarding their words, actions and deeds or in those of the people they’ve met over the years in some shape, manner or form.

Many probably worry about the future too - be it health, happiness, covid or the planet’s consciousness.

Isn’t that what life is all about? we experience, we learn, we evolve.

I do have one question though –

“What’s the real lesson here and how can we ALL apply the learning from this to come together and make our relationships with past, present and future Avalon members even stronger…?”

After all, many relationships go through hell at some point, but real relationships get through it.

Onwards and upwards

[sunwings]

Unfortunately, Bill is not a forger, unlike Max who is like some character out of a London East End gang movie. At only 6 minutes long it really is one of Vice's best mini-documentaries about REAL art fraud.

_GTE5bKPgHM

[TomKat]

I remember a story about Picasso doodling on a waitress' check (she was an art student), signing it, and leaving it as a tip. If that was a common practice, I bet Maya is having a hell of a time going around disingenuously discrediting all of them.

[Ewan]

My goodness, though I know it well it never ceases to surprise, how humans can be so thoroughly consumed by the petty whims of ego.

For clarity's sake this is not a comment about any poster on this thread but one without.

[wegge]

7WQyaKoWhjc

That’s the story of Wolfgang Beltracchi, the biggest art forger in history (and a German). I really fell in love with this guy once I heard about him earlier this year. His story holds so many angles to me.

[Bill Ryan]

I remember a story about Picasso doodling on a waitress' check (she was an art student), signing it, and leaving it as a tip. If that was a common practice, I bet Maya is having a hell of a time going around disingenuously discrediting all of them.Yes, I heard about that, too!

Here's a fun little Picasso story — an insight into his unique and quirky view of the world.

Picasso was on a train, with a stranger in the same compartment. They were chatting. The other man pulled out a photo from his pocket, and said "This is my wife".

Picasso replied, "Isn't she a little small and flat?"

:)

Someone was asking about my assets. That's a great question!

I live on a property that's a logjammed 6-way disputed title jointly held between folks from 5 different nationalities, 3 of them no longer in Ecuador. (Some reading this already know that other long story! It has no end in sight.) I don't own my own property title to anything at all.

And I've hardly been some kind of "fugitive". I ended up in Vilcabamba in 2011 entirely by unplanned accident. I've been a traveling gypsy for a decade and a half ever since I sold my house in Scotland in 2005, and started Project Camelot the year after.

Even the 30-year-old jeep I drive isn't in my own name: I tried to change it, but I actually can't. I live on a very thin $400/month pension, but that's just enough to survive on okay here... fruit and veg in the markets is all fresh and very inexpensive. I have no living relatives (no family at all, anywhere in the world), and no next of kin. The most valuable things I have are my health and my dog. :)

[The Moss Trooper]

The most valuable thing I own is my dog. Tut, tut Bill, I'd expect better from you.

I'm sure that you meant, "the most valuable thing in my life, is my dog".

:-)



From Bill: Yes, I agree!! I edited it before I saw your post.
:P

[araucaria]

Someone inquired about the signature. There is nothing wrong with the signature, but then a forger would have got it right too. The real problem as I see it is that if Bill Ryan has trouble putting things together about one memorable item that he witnessed as a small child, then this raises the question of how authoritative Maya Picasso can be about things that took place thirty years and more BEFORE her birth in 1935. She ‘said it was a fake’ (post #1). One may question her credentials: she was the painter’s daughter and model; was she an art historian with access to forensic techniques? I don’t know. I am referring to things like analyzing the fibre of the paper, the constituents of the ink, which may or may not be anachronic. In other words, the forger is a time traveller, operating from the future. For example, see this post (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?95596-Shakespeare-did-NOT-write-Shakespeare.--Mark-Twain-Is-Shakespeare-Dead--&p=1378844&viewfull=1#post1378844).
 
Maya’s father, who was already in his sixties [correction: fifties] when she was born, produced altogether around 50,000 works. You have to realize that during this time, the twentieth century was very busy, with revolutions, world wars, a cold war etc. She may simply be reiterating the idea/fact that the work was uncatalogued. But catalogues are not carved in stone: stuff comes in; stuff goes out – mainly because of all these things going on in the world that we read about in the history books.

For example, I can think offhand of a whole bunch of works that she probably wouldn’t have seen until fairly recently and for which the paperwork was lost. The Sergei Shchukin collection, a private collection of early 20th century art built up in St-Petersburg, and including numerous Picassos (paintings), was confiscated by Lenin’s Soviet Russia. Their owner fled the country in 1918. The catalogue of a recent exhibition in Paris – the first time these paintings came back to France – states that none of the archives, letters and other papers relating to the collection that he left behind have ever been found. But no one is saying that any item the collection is not authentic. Probably because the Paris art dealers who sold them have their own records. In other cases however, such as Nazi wartime looting, you have genuine works with a gap in their provenance.

But this raises a problem. Serious collectors would visit artists in their studios. What would happen? If it was like visiting a wine producer today, where you might get your free vintage magnum with your order, a free drawing might come with the pictures and not appear on the invoice. It is all very innocent, and commercial/generous in the sense of the ‘baker’s dozen‘. It is like delivering financial information on the basis that the black market doesn’t exist. The problem with the black market as practised by the elite is that we all dabble in it, which makes so many so satisfied with the status quo. Think about it.

I could go on about how the donor, Emile Wolf was putting his own reputation at risk. However, I am more interested in the deeper issue of fakery itself, and art as the total opposite of fakery – and also, despite evidence to the contrary, of monetization. An artwork has value for itself as a window into the human experience of an individual; hence also as part of its creator’s oeuvre; and finally as part of a community of similar human experiences. As such, it has artistic value for individual collectors and in exceptional cases for the general public as part of a museum collection or even a national treasure, world heritage. When this artistic value is absent or fades, then the work gains currency, becomes currency, in the sense of moving around. This is no bad thing, given that some works lose their notoriety through staying hidden away in private hands.

Anything no longer needed becomes a commodity: do I sell it, do I give it away, do I throw it away? From the outset, there has been little or no mention of the artistic value of this Picasso. There is no point complaining about the art market; it has been a financial asset all along. So art dealers are ambiguous people: they buy art because they like it; and yet they sell it on because they don’t need it. But they are a necessary cog in the works, because they have communications skills that artists often don’t have, as they focus on communicating through the work itself. But it is a vulnerable moment for an artwork, when it becomes what Melville in Moby Dick calls ‘a loose fish’: up for grabs. A forger gains popular traction because he fools all the experts, but he does so at the expense of the artist’s integrity – the artist he copies, for he has no integrity himself. The forgery is a foreign body in his work; it has no place there. Foreign bodies, like the lego piece recently dislodged from a small boy’s nose, can be harmless or harmful, occasionally useful (implants, again harmless or harmful); but they remain foreign. Likewise, the forger is an outsider. Eric Hebborn, in The Art Forger’s Handbook (Cassell, 1997) notes how painting is ‘not only an art but also a craft’, calling for eggs, milk, bread, potato, coffee, tea and chicory, olive oil… up to and including the kitchen sink. However, R.G. Collingwood in The Principles of Art (1938), states:

The central and primary characteristic of craft is the distinction it involves between means and end. If art is to be conceived as a craft, it must likewise be divisible into means and end. We have seen that actually it is not so divisible (p. 107-8) In other words, art is not a commodity. But forgery is not simply the commoditization of art. Simon Worrall’s book The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Verse, Violence and the Art of Forgery (Fourth Estate, 2002) is about the career of the literary forger Mark Hoffmann, whose main motivation seems to have been revenge on his Mormon upbringing, and especially the cover-up of the origins of the Latter Day Saints. He starts by forging a poem by Emily Dickinson. Actually no: he starts very young by changing the C on a worthless coin to a D, making it priceless. He ends in jail after killing people with bombs.
I can only quote a few passages to give a flavour of this fascinating story. The author quotes ‘Wiliam Hazlitt’s description of Iago, in Shakespeare’s Othello – “diseased intellectual act, with an almost perfect indifference to moral good or evil” – applies in equal measure to the man who once said that deceiving people gave him a feeling of power.’ The epigraph, by the Mormon Brigham Young, suggests that such indifference to moral good or evil can be sparked by its contrary, rebellion against moral evil:

We have the greatest and smoothest liars in the world, the cunningest and most adroit thieves, and any other shade of character that you can mention… I can produce Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers, and take their money from them. We can beat the world at any game.This problem has always been with us: back in the 2nd millennium BC, already priests, carving in stone,

were following historical precedent. In case anyone disputed the text’s authenticity, the priests added a guarantee and a warning. ‘This is not a lie, it is indeed the truth,’ ends the inscription. ‘He who will damage this document let Enki fill up his canals with slime’. (p. 141). Catering to ingenuousness:

Experience had taught Hofmann that he didn’t need to try and convince people of the authenticity of his documents. They would convince themselves. (p. 215)The relevance of all this? It is one egregious example of many of the deceptions that we see in all walks of life. A sizeable portion of alternative research deals – not always with a negative connotation – in fake humans: poltergeists, psychopaths, soulless zombies, grey aliens, robots and other AI entities, but also higher dimensional beings, gods, Nordics... They are not fakes, simply outside the ordinary definition of humanness.
But more than that, Simon Worrall explains the rationale behind the forger, which goes beyond the simplistic diagnosis of evil, sick, inhuman…

Forgery enabled Hofmann to make money doing something that fascinated him. He could live the free life of an artist. Forgery also brought intrigue, excitement, and celebrity into his life and satisfied a narcissistic conviction that he was smarter than everyone else. Above all it enabled Hofmann to simultaneously win the respect and admiration of the LDS hierarchy while sticking a knife between their ribs. Power and money, social acclaim and revenger, art and celebrity, were rolled into one seductive bundle. Ultimately forgery was his way of bridging the gap between who he was on the inside and the person he had had to pretend to be on the outside. As a child he had been forced to conceal the truth about himself and live a lie. Forgery enabled him to say what he really believed and win the argument he had never been allowed to have with his parents. He could prove that their religion that they so adamantly insisted was true was, in fact, an illusion. All without losing their love. By ‘discovering’ such rare artifacts he had gained the love and respect he had always dreamed of. He was the man with the magic touch, the king of the Mormon documents trade. (p. 138) In other words, forgers have a bad response to a bad stimulus. So, if two wrongs don’t make a right, where do you go from here? And especially, if your Picasso is at once authentic and a forgery, what do you do? You ask yourself (and others) a lot of questions.

[Kryztian]

This brings a story to mind: My German "uncle" had a friend he traveled with who knew Salvador Dalí. They were driving in Spain and the friend decided they should pay an unannounced visit. Gala, Dalí's wife answered the door and said he was very sick and couldn't see them. When the were back in the car, the artist friend says, "I guess they sent some painting off to a gallery to be sold." The value of art always goes up when an artist dies and Gala was famous for circulating rumors of her husband's impending death to drive up the price of art.

The widow and children of deceased artists often make a living selling and buying the paintings of their spouse or parent. They know better than anyone else the whereabouts and ownership of various paintings, who is collecting, and what prices were paid. They might have an inventory of paintings and it is to their benefit to have fewer authentic paintings out there, to drive up the value of their own paintings. So Maya Picasso has a vested interest in declaring that drawing to be inauthentic, for herself and for her clients and friends.

Maya was born in 1935 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Widmaier-Picasso), probably 30 to 35 after the drawing was done and probably long after it left her father's hand. It's extremely unlikely that she would have ever seen it. Did she give any reason for her judgement as to why it was a forgery? Does someone become an expert on a subject just by saying yes or no, but without providing any intelligent reason?

There are people who authenticate artworks or declare them forgeries, or give their best assessment. They look at the brush and pencil strokes, at the materials (paper, canvas, paint, etc.) used. At how it's aged. Did Lisa ever consult with one of these people, either before selling it, or after receiving Maya's letter? If she would have had the painting insured for authenticity, then she would have had to have had this done. But she didn't want to spend the money and assumed the risk herself. So it should be 100% her liability.

[palehorse]

Sorry to hear that, but it changes nothing how I feel about this community.. Long Live Project Avalon!!!

Seems like Kevin Moore got nothing to do with his life... I can see where it goes, he is pathetic!

[EDIT]
I just tried to reply to that youtube channel, and guess what? I am not allowed to add my reply because I was completely going against to general opinion in the channel. Then I posted "I love you Moore" and it is allowed, of course I deleted that. For me it just prove how bastard useless piece of !@#$ google/youtube is.

[Sue (Ayt)]

The widow and children of deceased artists often make a living selling and buying the paintings of their spouse or parent. They know better than anyone else the whereabouts and ownership of various paintings, who is collecting, and what prices were paid. They might have an inventory of paintings and it is to their benefit to have fewer authentic paintings out there, to drive up the value of their own paintings. So Maya Picasso has a vested interest in declaring that drawing to be inauthentic, for herself and for her clients and friends.

Maya was born in 1935 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Widmaier-Picasso), probably 30 to 35 after the drawing was done and probably long after it left her father's hand. It's extremely unlikely that she would have ever seen it. Did she give any reason for her judgement as to why it was a forgery? Does someone become an expert on a subject just by saying yes or no, but without providing any intelligent reason?

There are people who authenticate artworks or declare them forgeries, or give their best assessment. They look at the brush and pencil strokes, at the materials (paper, canvas, paint, etc.) used. At how it's aged. Did Lisa ever consult with one of these people, either before selling it, or after receiving Maya's letter? If she would have had the painting insured for authenticity, then she would have had to have had this done. But she didn't want to spend the money and assumed the risk herself. So it should be 100% her liability.

Also: A quick search of Emile Wolf finds:Link (https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/property-from-the-family-of-emile-wolf)

Born in 1899 in Hungary, Mr. Wolf began his art collection with landscapes painted by local emerging Hungarian artists. Working in the lumber business, he traveled extensively throughout the world and used these opportunities to acquaint himself to art of different genres and time periods.


All of what you wrote above is completely logical to me, Kryztian.
But then, when has our legal system ever made any sense?
:clock:

[Kryztian]

Also: A quick search of Emile Wolf finds:Link (https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/property-from-the-family-of-emile-wolf)

Born in 1899 in Hungary, Mr. Wolf began his art collection with landscapes painted by local emerging Hungarian artists. Working in the lumber business, he traveled extensively throughout the world and used these opportunities to acquaint himself to art of different genres and time periods.


There you have it. Mr. Wolf "traveled extensively throughout the world" and he could have also been in Africa for his lumber business, especially he was interested in rare unusual woods. The Sotheyby's catalog also shows he had this painting in his personal collection:

https://i.imgur.com/M88W06x.jpg

It is of African sculptures, and when I have seen African art like this, it usually does come from countries like Ivory Coast, Ghana and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). It really isn't surprising that he traveled to Africa.

Also, he was quite generous and gifted several pieces of Art to the National Gallery (https://www.nga.gov/collection/provenance-info.65.html) so it really isn't surprise he gave a piece of art to Bill's father.

[Billy]

This is a copy of the letter that Maya Picasso sent.

44555

I do not understand French but one persons translation reads.
Quote:
I already responded and responded again that I do not "believe" that this is the work of my father's hand. Sorry.
End quote:

Maybe someone can confirm what the letter actually says ?

To me a "belief" is not a fact but an opinion. Which means there was not a full investigation on Maya's behalf on whether the sketch was genuine or not.

[araucaria]

And here's an enlargement of the signature: "P. Ruiz Picasso". This is how he signed all his early work. (Dr Enrique Mallen — a Picasso expert, see below — dated it to around 1903.)
I have a problem right here: 1903 doesn’t sound right: I am thinking more like 1900. Enrique Mallen’s own site says this for 1901:

JANUARY 1: In MÁLAGA, accompanied by Casagemas, goes to visit Uncle Salvador in the hopes of obtaining the 1200 pesetas that could buy his way out of serving in the military. Outrages everybody by his behavior - ignoring his family members, visiting brothels, and by his dress and demeanor. His friend Casagemas joins him in all of his activities and adds excessive drinking. Casagemas' excesses lead Picasso to separate from him, asking his Uncle Salvador to pay his friend's passage back to Paris. This was the last time he was to see Casagemas alive. Apart from a few drawings, produces little work during the month they spend there. At this time, drops his father's name when signing his paintings. This will be the last time he returns to the city of his birth.‘Drops his father's name’ refers to Ruiz, Picasso was his mother’s name.


Billy, the translation is OK.

[araucaria]

While I have insufficient evidence to come to anything approaching a conclusion, there is enough to build up a couple of strands in an intriguing story, a lot of which comes of course, as I suggested, from looking at the actual artwork. Take it as no more than a piece of creative writing.

First off, my doubts over the date are important because the period covers a time when Picasso was in Barcelona, in Paris for two months, then back in Barcelona for a while before settling in Paris. In Barcelona, he would attend bullfights with the likes of Jaime Sabartés. In Paris, he would frequent museums and galleries, learning the ropes from the modern masters, many of whom were still alive. So the drawing could be a sketch from life in Barcelona, with or without this more self-conscious artistic component.

It should be noted in passing that these artists’ movements were partly dictated by their dodging the draft in the Spanish-American war over Cuba, much as the Impressionists before them had to contend with the Franco-Prussian War.

Secondly, if Maya Picasso dismisses the piece out of hand as a fake with no substantive argument, then maybe she has some subjective reason for rejecting it. In other words, it does not match her idea of who and what her father was or should be like. While there is nothing objectively shocking about a young man barely out of his teens being different from the mature figure who became her father decades later, there is one thing that might shock a daughter and no one else. More on that below.

I have a book published in 1995 by the author Norman Mailer, Portrait of Pablo Picasso as a Young Man – or rather the 2004 French translation, so I cannot make verbatim quotes. Mailer confirms the name change as taking place in 1901. In the preface, he describes his experience of studying the 33 large volumes of Zervos’s Pablo Picasso in 1962, and being destabilized to the point of taking another 30+ years to write it up in this book. Incidentally, there you have the same three decade gap as between the above two Picassos.

Mailer begins with an almost legendary account of Picasso’s birth. He appeared stillborn, until his uncle, Dr Ruiz, revived him with a whiff of cigar smoke. If true, the story strikes me as having a shamanic component to it. Mailer goes on to describe how in Paris, the precocious artist would copy others with extraordinary intensity, borrowing from everyone, while holding off from developing the personal style that any artist must have. This sounds to me very much like what a forger would do, except that the forger never does find a style of his own. In other words, the forger is a kind of stillborn artist, a failed artist. Mailer notes how earlier Picasso underlined in his Latin grammar the word latrocinor (‘I am a pirate; I am a looter’).

This is hugely important for all of humanity, for you only have to remember the havoc the biggest failed artist of them all ended up wreaking – no name needed. I will come back to this idea in another post on another thread.

Coming back to the drawing, it is slightly unusual because it shows two matadors standing side by side, where typically the non-cognoscenti at least would only expect one, such is the stardom attached to the role. Why they would be working in tandem may be explainable in terms of real people depicted in this unusual situation. Picasso may or may not have seen (I don’t know) a painting by Manet depicting his model Victorine Meurent, herself an artist, as a matador in a pose resembling a painter’s perhaps more than a bull-fighter’s. What is more tangible is the resemblance, however slight, of the younger figure on the left to Picasso’s self-portraits of the period. This would mean that the other matador is a representation is one of his friends or acquaintances. The question then is who? And why – apart from the fact that he was there?

Notice in passing how part of the psychological aspect is very old. Norman Mailer describes how, as a small child in Málaga, Picasso used to go the corrida with his father and once was so fascinated with the torero’s bright costume that he cried uncontrollably until he was allowed to touch it. Another major event was the death of his sister. When he was 13, she caught diphtheria, and Pablo vowed to give up his art if she were saved. When she died he decided God was evil and destiny an enemy, feelings that were mixed up with the almost magical conviction that his sister’s death had liberated him to pursue his art, whatever the consequences. This is the art that we are talking about: serious stuff.

In Barcelona, Picasso shared a studio with Carles Casagemas; as the latter paid the rent, the former decorated the studio with everything they didn’t have: a large bed, a table bearing a lavish meal etc. Douanier Rousseau saw the connection with an Egyptian tomb, which suggests that Picasso was still dead before coming properly to life. Be that as it may, Mailer describes how, in order to keep body and soul together, the artist was churning out all sorts of material, including charcoal portraits of his friends. So the model could be this Casagemas, who soon committed suicide and was painted by Picasso on his deathbed and in his coffin. But apart from the poverty, there is nothing shocking to this explanation for how the drawing came about.

The possibly shocking episode happened in a repeat situation in Paris – which would mean that the signature is problematical after all. It is not inconceivable in light of all the above that Picasso ‘forged’ his own signature, meaning that he reverted to the one he is supposed to have abandoned. It could therefore be BOTH genuine (signed by the artist) and fake (anachronistically wrong) if the signature pointed to an earlier date. This makes it possible to fool the experts without engaging in a forgery. Why would he do that? For a very good reason that is entirely understandable even today – especially today. In Paris, the same thing happened when the impoverished Picasso moved in, this time with his dealer, one Pere Mañach, about ten years his senior and notorious for his taste for young men; he was immediately fascinated with Picasso who, we are told elsewhere, looked like a girl. Mailer describes how Picasso definitely avoided this Mañach as much as possible, even walking the streets half the night to stay away. Writing in the 1990s, Mailer tentatively hints at homosexual predation on Mañach’s part. Viewed from 2020, this sounds exactly like what we hear so much of especially in top level sports, with talented youngsters taking years or decades to tell their story of being abused by their coaches leveraging their desire to achieve their ambitions.

Mailer notes the likeness between Picasso’s self-portraits and his portraits of Mañach, and wonders if this is not a sign of sexual promiscuity. If the litigious drawing were a double portrait of the two together, then it would be very understandable for the artist’s daughter to recoil from the whole business, without at all knowing why. So there you have the ambiguity: if the picture is genuine, then it is evidence suggesting that the sordid affair really did happen; if the picture is a fake, then the whole episode remains covered up.

I’ll leave this aspect there and segue into something completely different, on a different time scale, telling a different story about different protagonists. When I zoomed in on this picture, I was struck by a resemblance of the figure on the right to… Bill Ryan (headgear and all)! Of course, this makes no sense whatsoever, unless we presuppose a likeness to his father – these things do happen :) If so, what we then have is a drawing gifted to someone bearing a resemblance to this matador. Could this happen by chance, or if not, how else could it happen? I think many people might do this, but only to someone they could get in touch with. One may wonder, did Emile Wolf have this picture with him in Ghana for this very reason?

I know just one thing about James Ryan from Bill himself, who once explained somewhere on Avalon that his father had had a part in the invention of the Identikit/Photofit system, whereby an artist joins some dots (facial features) to obtain a bigger picture. A Roman nose plus a protruding jaw, bushy eyebrows, receding hairline; put them all together and you have a portrait that someone might recognize, and voilà, you have a flesh-and-blood missing person. For this invention, I imagine Mr Ryan got his own photo in the papers and whatever, meaning that Emile Wolf had the possibility of noting a resemblance in the drawing in his possession. He might have discovered the man was living in Ghana where he himself was heading looking for African art, and decided to look him up. Something along those lines.

This is as far as I am able or prepared to explore in this direction. It is really none of our business. One important thing we have learned over recent decades is that secrets are kept not only by perpetrators, but also by victims, not to mention their friends and family. My tentative conclusion at this point is that Bill suffered grief from the residual effects of Picasso’s own silence being passed on to his daughter, perhaps mistakenly calling the drawing a fake; and this loss was in turn passed on to Lisa the art dealer, through Bill’s expert perhaps correctly calling it authentic. (This is independent of the question of insurance: if she was not insured, then she ought to have been.) All in all, the artwork itself appears to have had a troubled, uncatalogued existence, causing who knows what other pain down the century. But the real grief belongs to Picasso himself, obliged to scrape a living by revisiting such painful experiences.

I am reminded of the Borges story ‘The Zahir’ (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?79009-Reptilian-Entity-Attaches-Itself-to-Boy-who-Viewed-an-Egyptian-Mummy-at-a-Museum&p=923431&viewfull=1#post923431) in which an object of obsession turns up in various forms and is something to be forgotten, lost or buried in order to preserve one’s sanity. But perversely it can never be left entirely alone: ‘There were nights when I was so sure of being able to forget it that I deliberately recalled it to mind. What is certain is that I overdid these occasions: it was easier to start the thing that to have done with it.’ There are things that we need to forget and to forget we are forgetting. The trouble with art is that nothing gets thrown out, while other things sometimes get thrown in! There is another Borges story called ‘Theme of the Traitor’, in which one Ryan learns to stop looking. It is always difficult to know where to draw the line.

[araucaria]

This is a copy of the letter that Maya Picasso sent.

44555

I do not understand French but one persons translation reads.
Quote:
I already responded and responded again that I do not "believe" that this is the work of my father's hand. Sorry.
End quote:

Maybe someone can confirm what the letter actually says ?

To me a "belief" is not a fact but an opinion. Which means there was not a full investigation on Maya's behalf on whether the sketch was genuine or not.
Billy, I said the translation of the letter in French from Maya Picasso was OK. There is one interesting thing though. ‘I believe’ is ‘je crois’, ‘I don’t believe’ is ‘je ne crois pas’. But she writes ‘je ne crois’ with no ‘pas’. This is a common enough writing mistake because the negative has already been written by the time you get to ‘pas’. (Note how oral French does the opposite, often skipping the ‘ne’.) I would hesitate to see a Freudian slip, simply because her written French is not totally reliable. Notice how she has added an ‘s’ to ‘debout’ to agree with a plural: she was right the first time, ‘debout’ is invariable.

[Frank V]

This is a copy of the letter that Maya Picasso sent.

44555

I do not understand French but one persons translation reads.
Quote:
I already responded and responded again that I do not "believe" that this is the work of my father's hand. Sorry.
End quote:

Maybe someone can confirm what the letter actually says ?

To me a "belief" is not a fact but an opinion. Which means there was not a full investigation on Maya's behalf on whether the sketch was genuine or not.
Billy, I said the translation of the letter in French from Maya Picasso was OK. There is one interesting thing though. ‘I believe’ is ‘je crois’, ‘I don’t believe’ is ‘je ne crois pas’. But she writes ‘je ne crois’ with no ‘pas’. This is a common enough writing mistake because the negative has already been written by the time you get to ‘pas’. (Note how oral French does the opposite, often skipping the ‘ne’.) I would hesitate to see a Freudian slip, simply because her written French is not totally reliable. Notice how she has added an ‘s’ to ‘debout’ to agree with a plural: she was right the first time, ‘debout’ is invariable.

"Je ne crois" without adding "pas" is acceptable French, albeit somewhat formal and archaic. I have seen it before, albeit that it usually only shows up in written language, not in spoken language. ;)

[araucaria]

This is a copy of the letter that Maya Picasso sent.

44555

I do not understand French but one persons translation reads.
Quote:
I already responded and responded again that I do not "believe" that this is the work of my father's hand. Sorry.
End quote:

Maybe someone can confirm what the letter actually says ?

To me a "belief" is not a fact but an opinion. Which means there was not a full investigation on Maya's behalf on whether the sketch was genuine or not.
Billy, I said the translation of the letter in French from Maya Picasso was OK. There is one interesting thing though. ‘I believe’ is ‘je crois’, ‘I don’t believe’ is ‘je ne crois pas’. But she writes ‘je ne crois’ with no ‘pas’. This is a common enough writing mistake because the negative has already been written by the time you get to ‘pas’. (Note how oral French does the opposite, often skipping the ‘ne’.) I would hesitate to see a Freudian slip, simply because her written French is not totally reliable. Notice how she has added an ‘s’ to ‘debout’ to agree with a plural: she was right the first time, ‘debout’ is invariable.

"Je ne crois" without adding "pas" is acceptable French, albeit somewhat formal and archaic. I have seen it before, albeit that it usually only shows up in written language, not in spoken language. ;)
Sure, extremely formal and archaic. Possible from someone who writes in haste 'debouts' and removes the 's', unlikely from someone who does the opposite. Speaking here as an expert.
Frank , I would appreciate your feedback on my earlier post?

[Frank V]

This is a copy of the letter that Maya Picasso sent.

44555

I do not understand French but one persons translation reads.
Quote:
I already responded and responded again that I do not "believe" that this is the work of my father's hand. Sorry.
End quote:

Maybe someone can confirm what the letter actually says ?

To me a "belief" is not a fact but an opinion. Which means there was not a full investigation on Maya's behalf on whether the sketch was genuine or not.
Billy, I said the translation of the letter in French from Maya Picasso was OK. There is one interesting thing though. ‘I believe’ is ‘je crois’, ‘I don’t believe’ is ‘je ne crois pas’. But she writes ‘je ne crois’ with no ‘pas’. This is a common enough writing mistake because the negative has already been written by the time you get to ‘pas’. (Note how oral French does the opposite, often skipping the ‘ne’.) I would hesitate to see a Freudian slip, simply because her written French is not totally reliable. Notice how she has added an ‘s’ to ‘debout’ to agree with a plural: she was right the first time, ‘debout’ is invariable.

"Je ne crois" without adding "pas" is acceptable French, albeit somewhat formal and archaic. I have seen it before, albeit that it usually only shows up in written language, not in spoken language. ;)
Sure, extremely formal and archaic. Possible from someone who writes in haste 'debouts' and removes the 's', unlikely from someone who does the opposite. Speaking here as an expert.
Frank , I would appreciate your feedback on my earlier post?

I'm afraid I'm not qualified to comment on that, friend. I don't know enough about art and I am by no means an expert on the lives of already long-deceased artists.

All I really know and remember about Pablo Picasso from my art classes in high school is that, like many of his contemporaries, he heavily experimented with all sorts of drugs and alcohol, that he traveled a lot, and that he has covered just about every imaginable style, from impressionism and expressionism over surrealism to cubism and nihilism, including a monochromatic phase in which everything he painted was ─ with a few exceptions ─ in some shade of blue or turquoise.

:noidea:

[Kryztian]

Here are the three documents relating to the authentication and description of the Picasso drawing "La Corrida", two of them with a new translation. The French to English translations are courtesy of Flash (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?1746-Flash).

1) October 19th, 2006. Letter from Marine Bancilhon (sp?), the secretary to Claude Picasso, who is Picasso's grandson

https://i.imgur.com/Tirma5s.jpg

Translation:


Dear Gentelmen,
Mister Claude Picasso has examined the art piece described below:
• Corrida circa 1901 measuring n/? 5X26 cm
No. NYCRG004- 1 This drawing and its signature are not, in his opinion, and art from the hand of his father Pablo Picasso.
Please believe, dear Madame, in the assurance of my distinguished salutation

The secretary


2) February 24th, 2008 Letter from Maya Picasso, daughter of Picasso, step-mother to Claude Picasso

https://i.imgur.com/TMrv49C.jpg

Translation:



Regarding the art piece: 24,75 X 34,3
Signed at the bottom right hand side
P. Ruiz Picasso
Representing 2 men standing up
Created at the beginning of the century starting on the 1900 -___
I have answered and answered again
That I do not believe that this art piece is from the hand of my father _
Sorry,
Maya Picasso

3) March 16th, 2005. Report of Prof. Dr. Enrique Mallen, director of the On Line Picasso Project

https://i.imgur.com/6RkeTxa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VQ50wG9.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/l7ukjJl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/r4FHI0d.jpg

Note the last few sentences of Prof. Dr. Enrique Mallen's report, before his signature.


The signature that appears in the drawing is an additional mark of this transition between his Spanish persons and his Spanish persona and his new personality. While 'Picasso' mostly appears in his signature of 1901, he still preserves 'Ruiz' as part of his artistic name in some of the works. We know that until just before his trip to Paris, the artist had signed most paintings 'P. Ruiz Picasso', later simplifying the signature to 'P.R. Picasso'. Upon his return to Barcelona from Paris, he had for the most part abbreviate it further still to 'Picasso."

He clearly explains why the drawing is signed "P. Ruiz Picasso" and discusses in detail about how Picasso's signature evolved over time . Did Claude Picasso know this fact or take this into consideration when he gave his opinion to the secretary? Did he give this picture more than a 15 second glance? There is no indication of that. Meanwhile, Maya Picasso does not give any reason whatsoever for her conclusion about the painting, and she states it as if it is a subject opinion, not an objective fact. Did Lisa of New River Gallery every bother to furnish Claude or Maya Picasso with this comprehensive report, or notice his explanation of the signature? Did she even bother to read this her self or take that into consideration before she vociferously denounced Bill as an art felon?

[Bill Ryan]

This is extremely interesting, brought to my attention by a very astute Avalon member. (Thank you! :) )

In this email I sent to Lisa back in 2006, I shared what I knew of my father's connection with Emile Wolf in Ghana:

http://projectavalon.net/Bill_Ryan_email_to_Lisa_Levin.gif

That's all self-explanatory. But in this recent 2017 bio of Emile Wolf on the Sotheby's website, Wolf is listed as working in the lumber business.

I never knew that!

So that's the reason Wolf was in Ghana, where he would have been sure to have met my father, who was the General Manager of the National Timber Company.

http://projectavalon.net/Sotheby's_info_about_Emile_Wolf.gif

[araucaria]

Thank you Krystian, my browser got tired after a couple of pages on this website and I didn’t get that far. Clearly Enrique Mallen’s is a first appraisal, delivered with the proviso that he is not liable in the event of contestation. Art is money, but not of the sort that ‘you can take to the bank’. In that respect, he is more serious than either Lisa, the uninsured dealer, or Maya Picasso, who simply says sorry, too bad (désolée!). And of course, he is much more qualified than I am.

My own input was given from someone with some experience - but no formal training in this field - as an interpretative layer on top of the above. Our readings of the signature are compatible. Where I differ is in thinking that Picasso had been to Paris and seen Manet (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?30405-Here-and-Now...What-s-Happening&p=522169&viewfull=1#post522169). I may well be wrong

However, I was apparently not wrong in thinking – although it was a stab in the dark – that Emile Wolf knew what Bill’s Dad looked like. Btw, who is JAMES Ryan? :)

[araucaria]

What seems established if the drawing is genuine is that it dates from the start of the blue period or slightly earlier. There is a fascinating essay by Carl Jung (http://jungcurrents.com/carl-jung-takes-on-picasso-in-1932) claiming to be ‘in a position to look at Picasso’s pictures from a professional point of view’, and in which he analyzes the Nekyia, the descent into the underworld. This is an experience we find in Homer’s Odyssey, as part of Odysseus/Ulysses’ epic homecoming from the Trojan War. It is reworked by Virgil in the Aeneid, with the Trojan Aeneas on his way to founding the city of Rome. We also think of Dante’s Inferno, and of the Christian narrative of the entombment, taking place between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Reacting to a 1932 exhibition, Jung, who is familiar with Picasso’s ‘literary brother, James Joyce’, author of Ulysses (and later of the specifically nocturnal novel Finnegans Wake) here applies the Nekyia to the Catalan artist.

the Nekyia – the journey to Hades, the descent into the unconscious, and the leave-taking from the upper world. What happens afterwards, though it may still be expressed in the forms and figures of the day-world, gives intimations of a hidden meaning and is therefore symbolic in character. Thus Picasso starts with the still objective pictures of the Blue Period – the blue of night, of moonlight and water, the Tuat-blue of the Egyptian underworld. He dies, and his soul rides on horseback into the beyond. The day-life clings to him, and a woman with a child steps up to him warningly. As the day is woman to him, so is the night; psychologically speaking, they are the light and the dark soul (anima). The dark one sits waiting, expecting him in the blue twilight, and stirring up morbid presentiments. With the change of colour, we enter the underworld. The world of objects is deathstruck, as the horrifying masterpiece of the syphilitic, tubercular, adolescent prostitute makes plain. The motif of the prostitute begins with the entry into the beyond, where he, as a departed soul, encounters a number of others of his kind. When I say ‘he,’ I mean that personality in Picasso which suffers the underworld fate – the man in him who does not turn towards the day-world, but is fatefully drawn into the dark; who follows not the accepted ideals of goodness and beauty, but the demoniacal attraction of ugliness and evil. It is these antichristian and Luciferian forces that well up in modern man and engender an all-pervading sense of doom, veiling the bright world of day with the mists of Hades, infecting it with deadly decay, and finally, like an earthquake, dissolving it into fragments, fractures, discarded remnants, debris, shreds, and disorganised units. Picasso and his exhibition are a sign of the times, just as much as the twenty-eight thousand people who came to look at his pictures.To dispel the ambiguity between his psychiatric patients and such ‘schizophrenic’ artistic work (which would have to include his own research, in 1934 Jung added a footnote, including this statement:

(…) I regard neither Picasso nor Joyce as psychotics, but count them among a large number of people whose habitus it is to react to a profound psychic disturbance not with an ordinary psychoneurosis but with a schizoid syndrome. As the above statement has given rise to some misunderstanding, I have considered it necessary to add this psychiatric explanation.It is interesting therefore that the founding action ultimately leading to the Avalon forum project should have been the sale of such an artwork. The fine line between madness and creativity has often been noted. It is a line regularly trodden by those who are sometimes known as ‘conspiracy theorists’, a term suggesting that a diagnosis of insanity has already been made. This may actually be the case for many, but not everyone in the asylum is insane: you have medical and other staff, and visitors as well, not to mention inmates of unusual creativity, the likes of Vincent Van Gogh or Antonin Artaud, author inter alia of Van Gogh ou le suicidé de la société and of this:

The duty
Of the writer, the poet
Is not to shut himself up like a coward in a text, a book, a magazine never to emerge from it
But on the contrary to come out
Outside
To shake up,
To attack,
The public mind,
Otherwise
What purpose does he serve?
And why was he born?A forum such as Avalon I see as a further stage in a process where when formerly one artist might take twenty-eight thousand followers on this kind of trip, you now have thousands of posters all performing like artists and maybe attracting a few followers of their own. This is the symbolism of the bullfight, and in particular the multiplication of the matadors – the unspoken message being the taming of the raging bull. Jung’s whole short essay is well worth a read, but here is another excerpt:

The Nekyia is no aimless and purely destructive fall into the abyss, but a meaningful katabasis eis antron, a descent into the cave of initiation and secret knowledge. The journey through the psychic history of mankind has as its object the restoration of the whole man, by awakening the memories in the blood. The descent to the Mothers enabled Faust to raise up the sinfully whole human being – Paris united with Helen – that homo totus who was forgotten when contemporary man lost himself in one-sidedness. It is he who at all times of upheaval has caused the tremor of the upper world, and always will. This man stands opposed to the man of the present, because he is the one who ever is as he was, whereas the other is what he is only for the moment. With my patients, accordingly, the katabasis and katalysis are followed by a recognition of the bipolarity of human nature and of the necessity of conflicting pairs of opposites. After the symbols of madness experienced during the period of disintegration there follow images which represent the coming together of the opposites: light/dark, above/below, white/black, male/female, etc. In Picasso’s latest paintings, the motif of the union of opposites is seen very clearly in their direct juxtaposition. One painting (although traversed by numerous lines of fracture) even contains the conjunction of the light and dark anima. The strident, uncompromising, even brutal colours of the latest period reflect the tendency of the unconscious to master the conflict by violence (colour = feeling). This state of things in the psychic development of a patient is neither the end nor the goal. It represents only a broadening of his outlook, which now embraces the whole of man’s moral, bestial, and spiritual nature without as yet shaping it into a living unity. Picasso’s drame interieur has developed up to this last point before the denouement. As to the future Picasso, I would rather not try my hand at prophecy, for this inner adventure is a hazardous affair and can lead at any moment to a standstill or to a catastrophic bursting asunder of the conjoined opposites.

[Casey Claar]

What an absolutely intriguing chain of events. It very much sounds like something that would happen to me, lol. Sending love to Bill. ---Casey.